Rescue together with the Ministry of Emergency Situations

In the event of major emergencies, church rescuers will work in collaboration with teams of emergency psychologists from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, fly with them to disaster zones, and work in local operational headquarters, Interfax-Religion reports.

Such an agreement was reached the other day at a meeting between the head of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service, Bishop Panteleimon, and the Minister of Emergency Situations, Vladimir Puchkov.

Employees of the Emergency Psychological Assistance Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations will promptly inform the church assistance group, which includes specially trained priests, sisters of mercy and lay volunteers, about emergency situations.

In August 2010, an agreement was concluded between the Russian Church and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, within the framework of which priests and sisters of mercy undergo special courses on working in emergency situations, priests in special classes tell rescuers about the spiritual foundations of mercy and heroism (before, poor EMChES workers worked like this, blindly).

Church volunteers have repeatedly provided assistance in emergency situations. In particular, after the flood in the Krasnodar region. Volunteers, in fact, are needed in order to quickly solve some emergency problems that a cumbersome and bureaucratic state cannot always cope with. Now church volunteers will work closely with this state. From some point of view, this is convenient: you don’t have to worry about transport yourself to get to the emergency zone, or about accommodating volunteers. But will church volunteers lose efficiency? And won’t they turn into hostages of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, afraid to criticize the work of the rescue department, which, although it is one of the most effective among our government agencies, sometimes also fails to cope with its tasks properly?